Art and Star Wars

An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it. ~Paul Valéry

After watching the latest in a long line of tragic mistakes George Lucas has made in a bizarre effort to simultaneously profit on the gullibility of and alienate his fans (Return of the Jedi on Blu-Ray), I started thinking about art class. I can recall many occasions where students have created wonderful drawings or paintings and, not being satisfied with them, continued to work and work and work on them until they ended up completely ruining what they had done and usually ending up quite frustrated. Not fun.

This past week I sent out a number art websites that are fun. I have personally taken some time to explore these sites and I know a number of other people have as well, including some students. If you haven't yet, I would personally recommend thisissand and flame.

The big question, if you use these with your students is how can we save these works of art?

Watch below for one option.

Reflections from Bow Island

     Once again the Teacher 2 Teacher Conference in Bow Island was fantastic. The greatest benefit is getting to see so many classroom teachers showing you how they integrate technology into their lessons. Not only that, but in a lot of cases you are getting new ideas for teaching the same material in your classroom. 

     I really enjoyed getting to hear and meet so many of the educational technologists whose blogs I've been reading and websites I've been visiting over the course of this school year. It was interesting to note that one of the speakers, Richard Byrne, still manages to teach a classroom full-time while traveling frequently to present at conferences.

     Between Richard Byrne's session and a session with James Hollis I reached a simple conclusion. I need to blog more. And, I need to blog regularly. But what will I blog about? That remains to be seen. 

     Below is the first of what I hope will be many quick tip videos. I created this one with a handy free website called Screenr and a microphone. This one is about creating your own custom attendance page for your class using Smart Notebook. Sound clips can be found copyright-free from either Soundboard or Free Sound.

Animated Attendance (be patient, it needs to load)

Let me know what you think!